The Walls

Chapter 13 ~ 3 days after

I couldn't recall the next few days. They were spent in Oblivion's arms, crying and sleeping. Zamice went mute. He wouldn't tell us anything and I couldn't blame him for it. I mulled over the riddle. I mulled over Pepper. I mulled over the chance of me coming out alive. I even mulled over the option of suicide. After the fourth day or so of loitering around, doing nothing, I decided to stop being so sad. I pulled out the piece of paper with the riddle on it and brought it over to the other two
'Time to work this out' I snapped, pulling them down onto the sandy floor. The tide was low and the day was warm. I would go for a swim but now just wasn't the time. We were metres away from where Texan, Lucie and Pepper were buried. Everything just felt so rushed. So confusing. My vision swam before my eyes before I blinked a couple of times and pointed the symbols on the riddle:

@^LA
&DW
!)))YM

'These' I pointed to the symbols 'are symbols on a keyboard right?' Zamice got up and left the circle, I shrugged when TC gave me a questioning look. I didn't mind. If he was mute now, he couldn't help us just yet. I got up and grabbed a few sticks. I returned to the circle.
'Yes, Silver, they are keyboard symbols' TC confirmed, as I sat. I nodded and drew the numbers 1-9 and 0 into the sand, down in a column then drew a line down vertically next to them.
'So, let's begin by figuring out what numbers are' Oblivion said slowly, 'Smart Silver, very impressive' I winked and laughed a hollow, empty laugh. Something's died inside of me since Pepper died but something has grown. Hatred and murderous intentions. By the one, I put an exclamation point. TC leant over and drew in the at symbol next to the two and a hashtag by the three. Oblivion put the two different brackets at nine and zero. I penciled in an astrix at number eight. I uncertainly drew a dollar sign at number five. Oblivion moved my hand gently, rubbed it out and replaced it with a percentage sign. I blushed and put the dollar sign at four. We pondered six and seven. It took about five minutes to come to a decision. On six I put the ampersand and the caret in number seven.

After we then put the numbers and symbols in the code:

27LA
6DW
1000YM

I stared at it for a good 15 minutes and gave a groan of exasperation
'We deciphered it and it still looks as confusing as ever!' I cried
'Maybe we weren't supposed to' TC muttered. I glanced up at him and noticed his red eyes. He was annoyed. I pondered that option
'Well, if we weren't supposed to, what the hell could the symbols possibly mean?' I asked. He hesitated and said
'Maybe we just have to ignore them. Maybe we were just meant to completely ignore them and not bother'
'I think we were. I just think we're thinking too hard about it' Oblivion put in. He looked down and pointed to the last line 'It looks familiar but I can't put my finger on it' Zamice returned and looked at our work. He smiled a little and bent down to the six and the seven on our chart and switched the symbols. We had done it wrong. I laughed a little again and it sounded almost normal. Now we could try again with our chart correct:

1|!
2|@
3|#
4|$
5|%
6|^
7|&
8|*
9|(
0|)

26LA
7DW
1000YM

Even with the corrections we couldn't see a pattern. As the light died, my eyes began to water from staring at the sand so long. I stood up and moved our camp a little closer to where we had written the cipher and code. The tide was beginning to rise but we drew it high on the sand so it wasn't likely to get washed away. I cooked up some wild pig that Zamice had caught in the time he disappeared. We ate and lit a fire but still, no one could make sense of the stupid riddle. It was only when I had fallen asleep and it came to me in a dream that I got it...

'Silver my dear' the voice had come from nowhere. But it sounded a lot like...'It's your father, I shouldn't be doing this. Communicating with you through dreams, I mean, I could get in trouble but I thought maybe I could help you. The riddle. They told us what it was before you were even born. It's the simplest riddle possible, a simple 5 year old could get it but because your intelligence is well beyond it, you're certain to over think it' So Oblivion was right. I tried to talk but I couldn't. My throat was jarred. 'Don't speak, it makes it easier to trace'

? to trace ? what? everything got more jumbled.

'Honey, I'll give you the first one. @^LA, decoded is 26LA, it's 26 letters in the alphabet!' my heart stopped for a second. How could it be so simple!? How could a riddle given to us by the freaking creators of this thing be so easy!? 26 Letters in the Alphabet. 26LA. I shook my head. 'I love you honey, I hope you know that. Keep that murderous intention burning. It'll help. Goodbye dear.' I wanted to scream for him to come back. I needed to hug him, I need to take in his scent and I needed him to care for me. I just wanted my family back. I began to dream-cry but...

'OBLIVION!' I screamed as I woke up drenched in sweat. Oblivion was at my tent within seconds, looking around wildly. It was very early morning.
'What's wrong!?' he cried
'The riddle! The first...the first line stands for 26 Letters in the Alphabet!'
'What?!'
'Come!' I fumbled around and dragged him towards our working out. I pointed to 26LA. 'It's 26 letters in the alphabet' Oblivion's mouth dropped open and fell onto his knees so he could get closer. I knelt too.
'So...so...the next one is 7 days in a week!' Oblivion stuttered. I squealed,
'Yes! Yes! And the last one is 1000 years in a millennium!' I nearly cried in relief.
'How could we be so dumb?!' Oblivion asked
'I don't...I can't tell you that cause I'm not sure' the hysterical moment was broken by a loud, cynical and more-than-creepy laugh. My head snapped out, reaching for my sword. It rumbled throughout the area, loud and sonorous. I whipped my head around to see TC approaching us, tiredly rubbing his eyes. I called to him 'did you hear that?'
'Hear what?'
'the laughing'
'no...' he looked at me as if I was crazy.
'Are you 16 yet?'
'I'm not sure but I definitely wasn't when I came here' I relaxed
'It's just you going on 16' Oblivion sighed happily. He flopped onto the sand.
'What's got you two so giddy?' TC asked 'You didn't have sex did you? If you did, I'm gonna leave cause I don't want a pregnant teammate'
'no! What is up with everyone's obsession with assuming we had sex?' Oblivion groaned
'We figured the code out' I said, my eyes burning
'What?!'
'We figured it out!'
'You did not!' TC cried
'We did!'
'She did' Oblivion said, nudging me 'you figured it out'
'No, we did' I said firmly and he wrapped his arms around me, kissing my cheek.
'Wait, you're going out? And are you sure you didn't have sex?' I looked at Oblivion
'How did you not know we were going out? And no we didn't' I sighed
'I'm not sure, you never told me' we all glanced awkwardly at each other 'no sex then?'
'No sex!' TC laughed.
'So what's the code?'
'26 letters in the alphabet, 7 days a week, 1000 years a millennium' TC looked down and a look of dawning came over him
'We gotta go! We gotta be the first outta here!' TC cried and everything went crazy. We all were packing our things up and by the time everything was nice and compact, Oblivion shooed TC and Zamice away to the centre. We trusted them enough with our stuff after all. Oblivion held me back to watch the sunrise. The colours of blue changing to orange to pink. It was quite the sight. I touched Pepper's grave and sighed
'No point thinking about it. It'll just slow you down' Oblivion whispered. 'it's hot, take the cloak off' I slipped it off and he did the same to his. 'better?' I nodded and then squealed as he picked me up and threw me into the water.
'BITCH! Get in here!' I giggled and he dived in. He disappeared for a second then popped up. He hugged me from behind.
'I love you so much' he whispered in my ear, while we swayed in the water. It was calming. The water lapping at my waist. My cloak lay heaped next to Oblivion's. I turned around to face him and replied with
'I love you more' he smiled and kissed me.

It was a picture perfect moment. It was my picture perfect moment.

A kiss.

In the sunrise

And then I wished that I was safe, at home with Oblivion.

Time to go home, I thought with a fierce spark.

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UNEDITED IM SORRY

OH MY GOSH IM SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING IN LIKE FOREVER

but as a writer, other stories sometimes catch my attention and sometimes you get writers block and I've been busy as my holidays have started a Christmas is nearly here!!!!!!!! omigawsh

Merry Christmas all and I promise I'll update quicker!!

God bless you all xx

~Silver